She grabbed the day’s mail, ripping into the final tags trickling in for the wishing tree. The rest would be hand-delivered by guests in attendance. She took a look at the tree. It was already pretty full. Everyone had something to wish the happy young couple. But Ivy hadn’t thought of anything to write on a tag for her sister and Owen. The right words eluded her. She could hardly write, “Don’t make the same mistakes I did.” She thought of her earlier revelation about loving someone all the way. Maybe that would be her wish for her sister—that she and Owen could do what she and Elliott could not. Then she thought about making a toast and her stomach lurched.
There was a knock on the door. She turned to it, forgetting for a moment what she’d just seen in the front yard, expecting for the surprise she had arranged for Shea to be waiting on the other side. Instead she tugged the door open to find Vivienne blinking back at her, her makeup artfully applied, her eyes the color of clover. Her beauty only made Ivy dislike her more.
“I was hoping you’d reconsidered talking to me. I had a good conversation with your husband this morning.” She leaned against the doorframe, looking at home in a way that was disconcerting to Ivy. “He says he’s not sure he can pursue the story any longer, but I’m going to keep working on him …” She shrugged like Elliott’s change of heart was just a trivial detail, but Ivy knew different. “I’m just giving you a chance to weigh in with your side. I mean, if you want people to hear it.”
Ivy shook her head. “I don’t have any intention of talking to you. And I’d appreciate it if you’d leave my family and friends alone.” She emphasized “friends,” hoping that the reporter would know that meant Michael specifically.
The clover-green eyes narrowed. “Your family and friends are the story I’m covering right now. Imagine my surprise when I realized that two of the stories I’m covering involve you and your family. I call that serendipity.”
Ivy willed her face to be expressionless as she responded. “We’ll just see about that,” she said.
Michael pulled up outside in his yellow Jeep and honked the horn as the reporter gave her a little wave, turned, and sashayed down the steps. Ivy watched them go, hating Vivienne’s ridiculous stiletto heels, her fancy skirt that didn’t qualify as beach attire, and her overly red lips that transformed into a smile as she got into the passenger side of the Jeep, the wind whipping her perfectly fixed hair into a mess as they drove away together. Mostly what Ivy hated was that the reporter was in her spot beside Michael—and there was nothing she could do about that.
Ivy paced by the front window, eyeing the street. April had promised to arrive this afternoon, and she couldn’t wait to see her. Upstairs she could hear Shea getting ready for her and Owen’s last dance lesson before the big day. Ivy wondered what song they would dance to.
Minutes later Shea clomped down the stairs wearing her wedding shoes with a pair of shorts. She looked silly, and Ivy giggled. Shea pointed at her. “No comments from the peanut gallery. The instructor said I better get some practice wearing the shoes I’m going to be dancing in.” She held up a bag. “I’ve got shoes to change into when we’re done. We’re going out to dinner after.”
Ivy looked outside once more. “Are you leaving now?”
“Yeah, Owen will be here any minute. Why? You’ve been camped out by this window since before I got in the shower. What’s up with you?”
“I’ve got a … surprise coming. For you. I was hoping it would get here before you left.”
Shea clapped her hands together, smiling like the little girl Ivy used to pretend to be mermaids with. “I love surprises!”
“Yeah, I know. That’s why I arranged this one, but it’s late.”
Shea glanced down at her bare arm and looked up. “Of course I’m not wearing a watch, but I don’t think I have much time to wait.”
“Oh, it’s okay. I know you’ve gotta go. Hopefully it’ll be here when you get back.” She couldn’t keep the disappointment out of her voice.
“Hey.” Shea put her hand on Ivy’s arm, the kindness and genuine feelings from the night before passing between them. “Whatever it is, I appreciate you thinking of me. It’s nice of you to try and make my wedding special.”
A knock at the door surprised them both. She hadn’t heard the car pull into the drive. She grinned at Shea and raced to open the door first, calling, “I’ll get it!” She blinked back at Owen’s face on the other side of the door.
“Gee, Ivy, didn’t know you were so excited to see me,” he quipped. Apparently all was forgiven now that Shea was back.
She rolled her eyes and waved at Shea. “Your ride’s here.” She watched them go, enjoying Owen’s amused gaze as he took in Shea’s outfit.
“Hey, Shea,” she called after them.
Shea stopped, shielding her eyes from the sun as she looked back at Ivy. “Yeah?” she asked. Ivy could hear the impatience in her voice, anxious as she was to try out her dancing shoes.
“What song are you dancing to?” she asked.
Owen nudged Shea and Shea smiled. “It’s a surprise.” She giggled.
Ivy saw the familiar car making its way down the street, headed toward their house in the nick of time. “Hey, speaking of surprises,” she yelled, pointing at the car. “Here comes yours!”
Shea looked at the unfamiliar car and back at Ivy, confused. “What? You were expecting FedEx?” Ivy asked. April parked on the street and jumped out, waving a box at Shea as Ivy ran into the yard to meet her. Owen just looked confused as the women encircled him and Shea tore into the box, Ivy calling out erratic introductions as the tape was ripped from the box. Before she was even into it, Shea was already calling out, “Is this what I think it is?”
Ivy just smiled back at her and waited for her to see the folds of white silk hidden underneath aged tissue paper. Shea pulled the dress from the box and tossed the cardboard aside as she held her prize aloft, the dress waving in the wind like some oversize silk flag complete with lace and pearls. “Mom’s dress!” Shea kept saying over and over, the smile on her face exactly what Ivy had in mind when she’d first conceived of getting April to bring it.
Shea turned to Owen. “Now I don’t have to wear that ugly one I hate!” She reached out and hugged first Ivy, then April. “Thank you both so much!” She looked at April for a moment. “You must be April!” Tears flowed from all of them even as they laughed.
“I hate to break up this little party, but we better be going if we want to make dance class,” Owen said, clearly looking for an escape from the flowing estrogen. Reluctantly, Shea handed over the dress to Ivy, with the promise that Ivy would take it in and hang it up. Tomorrow would mean a speedy alteration process if the dress would be ready for the nuptials. Ivy had already secured an expert seamstress—one of Leah’s cronies—for the job. She held the dress up and inspected it. It looked like it would fit Shea perfectly. It helped that Margot and Shea were roughly the same size.
As she watched Shea and Owen drive away, she realized she wished her sister nothing but happiness. The thought comforted her. She’d already come a long way. Maybe that meant she’d make it the rest of the way too. She put her arm around April and squeezed. And now her best friend and trusted confidante would be beside her as she did. Everything felt perfect as they headed up the stairs into the house, the dress dancing on the breeze as they walked, just like it would dance when Shea wore it in two days. And Ivy had made that possible. But her feelings of goodwill lasted as long as it took for April to start talking, to confess that the dress wasn’t the only thing she’d brought to Sunset with her.
Twenty-Two
The feeling between April and Ivy went from elation to devastation in the few seconds it took for April to reveal that she had brought Elliott with her. Dread swamped her. “What do you mean, April?” she asked, her voice a warning.
“Elliot’s here,” She repeated, her eyes begging her to understand.
“What?” She should have expected this. She had never told him outr
ight that she did not want him at the wedding, just assumed that her message was loud and clear: no contact. She hadn’t worked out what excuse she’d tell her family yet for Elliott’s no-show, but she’d certainly determined she didn’t want him here.
“Ivy.” April switched tactics from beseeching to exasperation. “From what I can gather, you haven’t even told your family yet what’s going on. What was going to be your excuse when Elliott didn’t show up? Having him here actually helps you, when you think about it.”
“Thanks a lot. I appreciate your thinking of me.” Ivy couldn’t have been more sarcastic.
“If it helps you to know, it was kind of a last-minute decision,” April admitted. “Elliott thought it was risky, but I talked him into it. At least I had the good sense to leave him at the hotel first,” she said, as if that made a difference.
Ivy looked at her friend—the one person she thought would never betray her. “I just can’t deal with this right now, April,” she said.
“Then when will you, Ivy? How long are you going to keep running away?”
Ivy stood up, signaling the conversation was over. She went to the front door and opened it. “I’ll let you know.”
April left without further argument, but not without a “you’re crazy and you’d better face up to life” look.
Ivy wanted to feel angry at April, but instead she just felt fearful over the thought of talking to Elliott now. Now when that reporter was there sniffing around for a story. Now when she was trying to retake lost ground with Michael. Now when the wedding was getting ready to happen in front of a nation’s worth of viewers. Now Elliott was here.
Things couldn’t be worse.
Ivy paced around in the living area, in front of the bank of windows, barely noticing the expanse of marsh in front of her. She stopped pacing when her phone rang and leaned down to pick it up. She looked at the display on her phone, grimacing at the number she saw: April, calling so soon after her hasty exit.
She was tempted to ignore it, giving her the cell phone equivalent of the silent treatment. But that would be childish, and maybe April was calling to say she was sorry and she was taking Elliott back where he came from. She answered with a hopeful note in her voice, drawing from a reservoir she was surprised she still had.
“There was something I didn’t tell you,” April said, going right to her point. “Something I think you should know.”
More unexpected news was not what Ivy was looking for. She sighed into the phone. “What?”
“Your family knows. About Elliott. About the Twitter account.”
So things could be worse. Her heart quickened and she sank into the nearest chair, gripping the phone tighter as she tried to process what April was saying. “What do you mean, they know? They haven’t said anything. They’ve acted completely oblivious.”
“Well, they know somehow. They’ve all been following him at least a week. Elliott said your mom apparently created an account just to follow him. Did you even know your sister was on Twitter? He told me as we were driving down here. He thought you knew—that they were following him for you, giving you reports or whatever.” April paused. “He was hoping that you were reading what he’d been writing to you, or at least hearing about it from them.”
Hanging on to the last shred of her pride, Ivy didn’t confess that she’d read every tweet he’d written. “No” was all she said. “They weren’t telling me about it.”
Her mind raced through the possibilities of how they could know. Michael. She’d told him about the Twitter account on the night they went out to dinner. So why had her family said nothing in spite of the chances they’d had, all doing a good job of acting oblivious?
She realized that wasn’t quite true. Just yesterday both her mom and her sister had danced around the subject, cracking the door open for her to walk through. But she wasn’t ready yet. Not with the wedding coming up. Not when she was so mixed up about Michael.
Anger rose within her, running through her veins and warming her skin. Betrayal was everywhere she looked. First Elliott, then Michael, then April, now the rest of her family—people who were supposed to care, to want the best for her. She leaned against the back of the chair and closed her eyes, Michael’s face coming to her mind as she did. Why did he do this to her?
“I gotta go, April,” she said, already rising from her seat and looking for her car keys. She had to find Michael and ask him why he’d betrayed her.
“We’ll just wait here,” April said. “I mean, Elliott wants to see you before we go back.”
“What if I don’t want to see him?” Ivy retorted.
“You’ve been following his Twitter account. You know every word he’s written even though you deny it. Ask yourself why that is and don’t lie to yourself that it’s just because you want to monitor what he’s saying about you. You’re checking it because you want to hear his apology, you want to accept it. Because you still have feelings for him and deep, deep down you hope that your marriage can somehow be saved.” April sounded smug and very, very right. “And you’ll never convince me otherwise.” She paused for dramatic effect. “So be mad at me if you must, but you will eventually get over it. I did the right thing bringing him here and I stand by my decision.”
“Must be nice to be you. So sure of yourself,” Ivy spat, sounding snippy and childish. Maybe someday she would understand April’s bold move. Maybe someday they would laugh about all this. But first she had to confront Michael and find out why he of all people had betrayed her too.
As she drove around trying to spot the yellow Jeep in Michael’s usual haunts, she thought about all that had happened between them in the last several weeks—how his hesitation with her had been palpable at first but had progressed to a tolerance that was a relief. From there they’d made slow progress to an understanding of what had doomed their relationship in the past. So what if he had turned away from her overtures last time they talked. With a few more weeks, they might’ve made it back to good friends. And from there, who knew?
She longed to turn back the clock, to go back to the night the photo was taken that she still had up in her room, the one of her and Michael, Shea and Owen. Michael had asked her to marry him at the gazebo near the pier that very night, kneeling down as children rode by on bicycles and elderly couples shuffled past. Some people stopped when they realized what was going on. She’d tried to listen to the words he said, but they were words she already knew—things they’d said to each other for as long as they could remember. The moment other girls dreamed of was, for her, one that had happened already, the details a mere formality. And even as she said yes and he kissed her and the people clapped and wandered back to their own lives, she’d felt a little pang for what she didn’t have—and for how unfair it was to Michael that she couldn’t muster up the same excitement he had.
After his proposal they’d met Shea and Owen for dinner on the water in nearby Southport, the mood festive as they all talked about the wedding. A nearby diner had snapped that photo, the sun setting in the background as the camera captured their radiant faces. But the ring Michael had put on her finger hadn’t fit and she’d spent most of the evening feeling it slip, worried that it would fall off.
She thought about all that Michael had to be angry with her for. She hadn’t just broken their engagement. She’d taken the coward’s way out, shipping his ring back in a box with a note, staying in Asheville with Elliott instead of returning to Sunset Beach. Everyone had been so angry with her, she’d been afraid to come back and face them all. So she’d started a new life, dodging them for years because she was embarrassed, ashamed of her behavior. And she’d blamed them for it because they didn’t show up on her doorstep and beg.
She pulled into the pier parking lot and walked over to the gazebo where Michael had proposed, taking a seat in the same spot she’d been sitting in then, wishing she could change what had happened after that moment in time. But as she closed her eyes and tried to picture Michael’s face, it
was Elliott’s she saw. Elliott proposing to her not long after they met, holding his grandmother’s ring as they sat beside the stream beside one of April’s cabins, the earnest look in his eyes as he begged her not to marry Michael.
He’d slipped Michael’s ring from her finger, replacing it with the one he held. Michael’s had been bigger, prettier, shinier. But Elliott’s had fit perfectly without having to be resized. Elliott’s ring had meaning attached to it, a heritage that didn’t involve her scheming, dreaming family, a chance to make her own way. She’d said yes to Elliott, feeling giddy and hopeful and … happy. So happy.
She looked down at her hand, at the ring she’d chosen to wear. She hadn’t taken it off at Sunset because she wanted to fool her family. But also because somehow it hadn’t felt right to take off her wedding ring. Not yet. She spun it around on her finger, noting that it needed cleaning. She’d neglected it like she’d neglected so many things.
She stood up and, for lack of anywhere else to go, headed for home. She aimed her car down the now-familiar street. As she passed the McCoy house, she gave it a cursory glance, not expecting to see the yellow Jeep in the drive. But it was. She turned abruptly into the drive and parked.
Not rehearsing what she would say to him, she knocked on the door, a staccato succession of sharp sounds.
He opened the door and blinked at her before moving out of the way and gesturing for her to enter. “Not sure I’m in the mood for whatever this is about,” he mumbled as he shut the door.
Ignoring his comment, she looked around. “Is she here?”
He wrinkled his brow. “By she I would guess you mean Vivienne?”
Ivy gave him her best “duh” look from their teen years. “Is she?”
He crossed his arms in front of him, looking amused. “No. She had some work to do. Some story she’s covering. She had to do an interview with some guy who’s in town.”
Ivy felt her blood pressure spike as she put two and two together. No doubt who Vivienne was interviewing. Her hands clenched by her sides, but she chose to ignore them. There was nothing to protect anymore. Everyone knew about Elliott’s Twitter account and their separation. In a way, she realized as she stood facing off against Michael, knowing that her secret was out freed her. She didn’t have to hide anymore. “Will you go for a walk with me?” she asked.
The Wishing Tree Page 21